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Friday, 23 January 2015

Eat. Nourish. Glow. Book event.

Everyone who follows me on instagram and YouTube is probably aware that I have been turning to a few nutritional books since the beginning of the year. Partly due to rekindled interest in nutrition and partly due the fact that I became a little stuck in the convenience food trap and needed inspiration to get back in to the kitchen.Eat Nourish Glow was purchased as part of me getting back on track and for recipe inspirations. Because you see when I was ordering this book for some reason in my head it was a recipe book. I've been eating well most of my life and while I am no nutritional expert, I read a lot and well let's face it I was snobbish enough to think I did not need any more advice. However when I opened the book, after the initial surprise about the format, I felt like fate had played a little trick on me. I sort of lost my way when it comes to food and maybe a few years ago Eat Nourish Glow wouldn't really have been relevant to me, at this moment in time it is an invaluable tool. I am about 2/3 through, I have been making sure that everything sinks in and rereading some of the chapters as I go along. Since the book is very new Amelia Freer has been doing a lot of events, one of which (in Whole Foods Kensington organised by Get the Gloss) I attended yesterday.

I bought two tickets which included food, refreshments and goodie bags for £10 plus processing fee (so about £11 each). My original choice of companion couldn't make it so Mr. RF was the stand in. As we arrived, Whole Foods Kensington vouchers to the value of £10 were handed out to every attendee (completely redeeming the price of the tickets). There was a wonderful spread of plant based foods including courgetti salad and watermelons which happen to be my favourites, green smoothies (the real deal not the full of fruit and a half a teaspoon of veg kind), coconut water, cucumber water and green tea. Around seven, when everyone settled down and had a chance to have their food, the main event started. It was almost like being on a talk show, were Susannah from Get the Gloss was asking Amelia different questions about the book itself and about different aspects of nutrition in general. At the end audience had a chance to ask questions of their own, before going down to the beauty section of the store where Amelia signed the books and goodie bags were handed out.

I really enjoyed the event, it was a great opportunity to meet the author in person and the down to earth, fact based approach that I could sense from the book was also present in the way that Amelia handles herself and the way she interacted with the audience. What I took away from it, is somewhat similar to the message in the book. The strongest message is to cook more, as when you cook yourself you are in control of what you put in your food, so no hidden surprises you might have missed because you didn't read the label properly. Having a balance is also important, she mentioned that getting an Omega 6 deficiency is extremely rare but the way it could happen is if you have too much Omega 3, what the body needs is a certain ratio between the two. So even though there are plenty of Omega 6 sources, and Omega 3 is the one that people tend to be deficient in, if you have gone on a bit of a health kick it's important not tip the scales the other way. All of us have different nutritional needs so there is only so far that general advice can go, it is very important to listen to your body, but the most important thing is having a healthy gut, because if it isn't the nutrients are probably not absorbing properly.

When it comes to supplements Amelia felt that it is very personal and while some supplements could be beneficial a lot of the cheaper varieties on the market don't do anything at all, this is an area where you get what you pay for and you really need to supplement according to what your body is lacking and not the latest trend. When it comes to fruit 2-3 portions a day is all that is needed, and not to eat fruit by itself have it with other things, like part of a salad for lunch, or at the end of dinner, not as a stand alone snack (Amelia's approach to eating makes snacks obsolete altogether) to avoid the sugar spike. I also learnt that Amelia's favourite foods are avocados, broccoli and eggs. I found this event very beneficial, even though after reading most of the book a lot of what was talked about was familiar territory, it sort of helped to connect the dots and put everything in to perspective. I don't know if it was the green smoothie or feeling like I'm on the right track, but I had the best night sleep in three weeks.

Of course we made use of the vouchers at the end of the night, and while we already have all the fruit and veg from Riverford, it was a great opportunity to stock up the cupboards. I am not sure if all the choices would be Amelia approved, but here is what we got: organic buckwheat, organic red lentils, organic brown rice, organic polenta, biona tomato juice, the chia co oats mixed berry, chi organic coconut oil, Richmond honey, dry chives, Dr Kargs organic crisp bread, organic black chia seeds, rude health sprouted oats, clear spring organic sencha loose green tea, rose buds loose tea.

12 comments:

What an awesome event! I know my diet needs to be improved a lot, but for now I'm doing all I can to eat as healthy as possible. It's funny that when people ask about my fave foods, I always think snack/dessert stuff, but I love avocados, broccoli and eggs as well. :D

Wow, i would love to go at this kind of event!! I need to move in somewhere food is important like that. Here, it's very difficult to find variety of whole, raw, health food. I enjoy to read this post! xx